small death and the codeine scene
by wewerethebestrichard
Summary: He kissed her once, but he was smashed. Well, not in the traditional sense, but enough that it didn't count.


She's never seen him like this before, not quite. Sure, she often feels intimidated by him, but rarely is she frightened - the bow tie gets rid of the effect, honestly. But not now. Now he's snapping the controls down on the TARDIS with a kind of weakness in his hands that is pregnant with disintegration. The term "loose cannon" comes to mind. He's something heavy that's fallen out of its usual place, that's rolling around with the movement of the ship as it pulls into space with its usual wheeze…

Dodging the bullet with the Beast on Starship UK, defusing Bracewell - Amy'd begun to feel a little bit invincible, to believe that the Doctor could wrangle a third option out of any fight-or-flight situation. But today had been different. Today, they'd lost, and badly.

His shoulders say soldier, his half-open hardened mouth says soldier, his eyes are always shadowed, but somehow he still hasn't learned to deal with this, with having a planet under his protection crumble. It was awful to see, but it'd been surreal - watching a clouded yellow marble collapse inward on a scanner screen was horrible (especially after meeting some of the inhabitants a few hours prior), but felt like a movie to Amy, deep down. But the Doctor had flown around in a frenzy for a few hours, trying uselessly to find some way to undo it or some loophole to exploit. And now he's standing on the flight deck, emptied out, chewing his lip, looking around but not at her face.

"Doctor…"

"No."

"Hey, come on. You can't win them all."

"Stop it, Amy." He's still looking at the floor like the sun's in his eyes.

"It wasn't even your fault, you can't possibly beat yourself up every time you don't do perfectly. This is such rubbish, what do you think you are, infallible?"

"Stop _talking_!_ Talking _won't change anything! Stop, stop, just stop!"

He finally looks up, all full of lava, and fear pushes her to run, but she waits until he walks off, pushing past her.

* * *

She's expecting a natural disaster, a tornado or something of that scale.

* * *

The storm rolls in over a couch with very bad cushions.

It's red corduroy, located several floors beneath the console room in a little suite Amy calls her own - it has a DVD player and a collection of hideous furniture, and always makes her feel at home in a comfortable, patchworked way. She's got her feet up on the watercolour-painted coffee table, trying to get her mind to wander. There's a good stack of magazines on the floor (fashion from the 50th century) that she's leafing through, and she only looks up when the Doctor comes through the door.

Usually when he comes looking for her in here, he just stands in the doorway, or lounges on the arm of a leather chair, giving her time but silently urging adventure. But this time he crosses straight to where she's sitting and stands in front of her. She looks at his hands. They're not twisting excitedly or fluttering nervously, they're all still and heavy.

He puts them on the corduroy.

He's leaning over her in a way that kicks up her heartbeat from zero to a hundred. This will be such a waste, she thinks, if all it amounts to is a moment of meaningless sexual tension, like everything else he does.

"Is this going where I think this is going? Because I have seen some crazy things on this TARDIS but that would be -"

His nose brushes her cheek. His eyes are closed, and she blinks hers shut reflexively, on edge -

He does it, he kisses her.

She sits up, pressing into it, eager to keep this going in case he comes to his senses in a second. But he doesn't - he keeps on kissing, and apparently hundreds of years for practice really counts for something. His breathing is quick and hasty, like he's trying to get closer and closer, she suspects this'll leave marks and she loves it. He's so much larger than life. It's like kissing stone, it's that hard and lasting.

Her fingers find his bow tie and pick the knot apart, he hums his approval, and that jolts her. Even as she lets the tie fall onto the coffee table and begins to work on the top buttons of his shirt, she begins to feel the fear in his mouth, taste warm panic in the way he's touching her.

"This -"

They breathe together, shared air in the humid space between kisses, he's got a hand behind her head in her hair, clenched halfway, trying to hold on but not wanting to hurt her.

"This -"

She's got fingers on his pulse, she can feel a 1-2-3-4 rhythm, more musically clever than hers to fit the extra beats in.

"This isn't right, Doctor, this is crazy."

His nose is brushing her cheek, his lips are parted and resting on her skin and she's annoyed, properly annoyed - he couldn't have done this all at some other time, when they were both nicely ignoring their emotions? But he's being so obvious that it's embarrassing, and she has to put a hand on his chest and push him back.

He looks at her questioningly, a question of trepidation, not confusion.

"What are you running away from?" Amy says. "Because, Doctor, I'm all for running, but we're supposed to do that together. You can't run _to _me, that's not how it works - this isn't leading anywhere good, and you know it."

"Nowhere good?" He puts his hand on her cheek, and leans in again and just hovers there, face millimetres from her neck. The underhanded idiot - she'd hit him if he was at a more convenient distance.

"Don't try to seduce me, space alien, you've got to learn to take no for an answer."

He sighs, and she hears his exhaustion suddenly, and feels it all at once in his body as his shoulders slump and he rests his forehead on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles.

"Oh, Doctor…"

He sits up clumsily and looks away, runs a hand over his face, he's beside her on the couch with a hand clenched in his lap, white-knuckled and very porcelain looking, now fidgeting like his hands always are. "I'm sorry, Amelia."

She hesitates. "Listen, I… I've been there, okay?"

He does nothing but look away a little more, with a guilty dip of the head.

She tries again. "I know - I get it."

There's a silence.

"I know you know," he says. "You always know."

"You're okay."

"Right… ah, Amy…"

He puts his hand over his eyes, winces like a migraine's coming on, like something's eating the insides of his skull. There's a wavering moment of silence and then he lets out a pained noise that she doesn't recognize - and then it registers as a sob and her stomach turns over.

Everything's been so dizzy up to this point, but the confusion goes away in a snap and she wraps her arms around him. He's uncurling and leaning on her and hugging her so close she thinks he'll crack her bones by accident, he's crying and she's hushing him and feeling a sore lump welling up in her throat.

"This is my fault," he slurs - who knows what he's even blaming himself for this time - "I'm so old, Amy, I'm so - this isn't your fault, Amy…"

"Shh, Doctor. I wasn't blaming anyone and you mustn't either, alright?"

She's imagined doing this, but always without context - she puts her hand on his head and strokes his hair gently. He gives a shuddering sigh - the top of his head is warm from the crying, she never pictured that bit, she didn't think she'd be holding his jumbled pieces together on a couch with bad cushions. It's all very real. It's all very very solid, and it's painful in the pit of her stomach to be holding such a fairytale in such a real place. In such a real way.

Untangling is awkward and again, too real, and he presses his fingers into his eyes to make the crying stop. When he pulls them away, she kisses him.

She's sharply aware of the bluntness and rubber softness of their mouths layered on top of each other.

"I don't think it's a good idea for us to sleep together, but I also don't think it's a good idea for you to be all alone tonight, Doctor, do you?"

That kiss should have said something, should have fixed a future, but the only thing it's done is put a tired smile back on his face. His eyelids are low, she's back to not quite knowing how he feels.

"What about a cup of tea, then, Pond?" He reaches wearily for his bow tie and loops it around his neck again, knots it in its neat, normal shape. "I know I've got a kettle round here somewhere."

"Much better."

He smiles at her again with the little dented corners of his lips.

"Amelia… I am glad you're here."


End file.
